For years now we have talked about keeping bees – we even planted a space for them 6 years ago in the side field, a circle of willow to give them shelter in the winter and keep visitors away. Now Claire did her beekeeping course a decade ago and its the wrong time of year to do it, so I’ve been taking an online course, and helping my friend John with his bees to get some experience. To my relief, I don’t mind being surrounded by thousands of bees at all, and the couple of stings I’ve had so far haven’t been a problem.
So we bought a couple of hives, and started looking around for bees. My first attempt was taking a swarm from a friend’s house, but they then swarmed again after a couple of days and we lost them all, so in the end I bought a nuc of Irish Black bees from Filip away up in Ballymena, and they are thriving, despite deposing their queen after a few weeks and replacing her. They’re very settled and doing very well – I hadn’t expected to take any honey this year at all, but they’d nearly filled all the frames in one super box, so I took a couple of frames. I couldn’t resist, and they have loads to keep them going.
Then a month later we got a second nuc of Black bees, and they seem to have settled well. The focus there is to build them up sufficiently to get them through winter. The weather lately has been amazing, and is due to stay dry so with any luck they’ll get a good start.
I didn’t think I’d enjoy beekeeping as much as I do. They’re fascinating creatures, and I could cheerfully spend hours watching them go about their business (if I had hours). Now to keep them alive and well….